SOCORRO -- Cory Falvey was taken aback the first time he saw Socorro baseball head coach Chris Forbes.

Falvey, who graduated from Socorro last Tuesday, was a middle school student back then, just hanging out with his older brother, Kyle, at a Bulldogs practice.

"My first impressions were that he's a good coach but he can be mean, real mean," Falvey said. "One day, we came out to practice, and I heard him yelling up a storm -- he threw a fungo (practice bat) and stuff -- so I was like, 'Well, I guess this is what I'm going to have to get used to.'"

Over time, Cory Falvey learned that Forbes' gruff instruction was his way of instilling a winning attitude and discipline upon the athletes.

Forbes knows how to win -- he's proven it for years -- and underneath that salted-up practice cap and rough exterior is a coach who has poured himself into building a baseball powerhouse.

"I take every day at a time and every game at a time," Forbes said. "The way I do things, my whole life is Socorro baseball during the spring. I'm working 13-, 14-hour days. Sometimes I'm here at 5 o'clock in the morning, sometimes 4:30 in the morning, just trying to figure out how to make these kids successful, give them every opportunity possible to be successful."

During a 25-year career, the former Austin High School baseball player has taken Socorro to 20 playoff appearances.

Those efforts have earned him numerous accolades, most notably an Texas high school all-star game.

Forbes also boasts the most wins (576) of any varsity baseball coach in El Paso County.

Bob Osborne, who owns the second-most wins and took Burges to the Final Four in 1983, considers Forbes a "championship" coach.

"I think there's an old saying that, 'Consistency is the mark of a champion,'" Osborne said. "If you look at his playoff record, where he consistently went to the playoffs and then deep into the playoffs, he's probably been there more times than any other coach in the city. I think that's championship coaching.

"He certainly is in the class with (former Bowie and Coronado head coach) Nemo Herrera now as the most successful coach in the city, and that's not even taking into account that he has the most wins in the city."

Socorro's state title this season is El Paso County's only baseball championship since Bowie won it all in 1949.

Although athletes are the visible heroes, Bulldog players said Forbes' coaching was vital to their success.

"He motivated us to go the extra mile, told us to do the right thing not just when people were looking but when no one was looking, to run that extra lap, do the extra push-ups, do the extra running and stuff," said pitcher Bobby Mares, who graduated Tuesday.

State championship special section at www.elpasotimes.com/socorro

Sure, Forbes could be stern, but it was toward a positive end, said 2000 Socorro graduate Omar Quintanilla, who now is a shortstop for the Colorado Rockies.

"A lot of people think he's strict, but he's strict in a way where he gets you focused and ready for the game, which I thought was a good thing," Quintanilla said. "He's even strict toward your grades. He made you want to pass because if you didn't pass, you couldn't play. Overall, I thought he knew what he was doing. I think he deserves this (state title)."

There is an easy side to Forbes, however. He takes time to joke with the players and even followed through on a bet he made four years ago to let them shave his head if they won state.

"If you drew up standards for a quality coach to coach in the Socorro community, you probably couldn't come up with a better one," Osborne said. "He's the right combination of hard-nosed discipline and laid-back attitude."

Having reached the pinnacle of his career, Forbes has a chance to retire on top after 25 memorable seasons.

But will he?

"I'll make a decision here in the next few weeks and stuff, when things start settling down, but right now this is the kids' time," he said Tuesday. "It's not about me. It's about them, and it's about us."